60 Monograph of the Cranes. 



Gray's life-size figure of the head and upper part of neck in his " Illustrated 

 Genera of Birds " was certainly not taken from a living specimen. In the 

 " Vtigel Europas " of Dr. A. Fritsch (1870) the figure of the Common 

 Crane is stiff, but the proper extent of the crimson poll is i-epresented, and 

 the tertiaries are contrastingly black, which is never the case (so far as I 

 have observed) in the eastern form ; but the crimson poll should have been 

 represented as being much more conspicuous. The same remarks apply to 

 the figure of the Common Crane in the " Ornithologie Provencale " of M. 

 Polydore Eoux (pi. 326), but in this figure the general colouring of the body 

 plumage is too pale. The chick, as figured by Mr. Dresser, is remarkable 

 for its bright rufous colouring throughout. 



The erectile tertiaries in the Common Crane are very broad, with their 

 webs much discomposed, and when raised they show to greater advantage 

 than in any other species of the genus, having considerably the aspect of 

 ostrich plumes. I cannot recall to mind a single characteristic figure of the 

 species when strutting proudly and with fully raised tertiary plumes. The 

 irides are reddish ; the bill greenish brown, much lighter at the base, dull 

 flesh-coloured at the base of the lower mandible ; legs blackish-grey. The 

 female, as usual, is noticeably smaller than her mate. Weight of the latter 

 about ten pounds. 



Albin, writing in 1738, remarks of the Common Crane that — 



The stomach or gizzard is muscular, as in granivorus birds ; the flesh is very 

 savoury and well-tasted, not to say delicate. They often oorae to us in England, 

 especially in the fen countries in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire ; but whether they 

 breed in England or not is not determined. 



[Mr. Blyth appears to have overlooked the fact that this passage is taken 

 almost verbatim from Ray's translation of Willughby's Ornithologia, p. 274, 

 published in 1678.] 



Pennant, in 1 785, remarks that — 



Cranes arrive in Sweden in great flocks in the spring season, pair, and disperse over 

 the whole country; and usually resort to breed in the very same places which they have 

 used for many years past. No augural attention, he adds, is paid to them there ; yet 

 Hesiod directs the Grecian farmer to think of ploughing whenever he hears the annual 

 clamour of the cranes in the clouds. 



In Griffith's edition of Cuvier's " Animal Kingdom " it is remarked that 

 the various inflections of their flight have been regarded as presages of 

 the weather and indications of atmospheric temperature. Their cries in the 

 daytime are ominous of rain, and, according to the poet Virgil, 



ilium surgentem, vallibus imis, 

 Aeriss fugere grues. 



More noisy clamours announce the coming tempest ; a steady and elevated 

 flight in the morning or evening forebodes serene weather ; a lower flight, 

 or a retreat to the earth, is the symptom of a storm. 



